Tom Coughlin On David Wilson’s Fumbling and the Correct Technique

“He’s following the technique that he’s been taught, and we’ll see under pressure if he can continue to do that. The problems occur when you try to make a move and the ball leaves your side or the pocket that you’ve established for it. You have trouble and when there’s no place to go and other people are surrounding you, you have no choice but to cover it up with both hands and get in position where you’re taking care of the football. That’s not that difficult a thing for David Wilson, because of his body style and because of the height of his running position. He can do a good job of covering the ball up, and he was careless and it cost us dearly, but I’m confident he’s going to learn from it.”

Later on he added:

“He fumbles the football, he fumbled the ball twice. He’s got to straighten that out. We’re not going to have a guy on the field who’s fumbling the ball. He wants to play, he wants to do it, he wants to improve, he wants to be a part of this team, he wants to help this team win. That is something that he must overcome. And the interesting thing is we didn’t see it in training camp, we didn’t see it in any of the preseason games, but it showed up then.”

And that’s the frustrating thing — everything looked great this preseason. Having been labeled a fumbler by the mainstream media since the Dallas opening game of 2012, Wilson hadn’t fumbled again all year, or for the preseason this year. We were all waiting for a breakout campaign last Sunday night as a reformed student of Tom Coughlin — a moment that never came. In fact David Wilson in the moment seemed to forget in an instant everything he had worked so hard on, worked so diligently to overcome. Now he is a fumbler working his way out of the doghouse both in our perceptions and in reality. A tough place to be as the #1 running back for the NY Giants.